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Ambulance use for low-acuity conditions by long-term care facilities for older adults

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Key summary points

AbstractSection Aim

To investigate the extent to which long-term care facilities used ambulances for low-acuity conditions.

AbstractSection Findings

A large number of instances of ambulance use for low-acuity conditions corresponded to long-term care facilities.

AbstractSection Message

Intervention in long-term care facilities may reduce ambulance use for low-acuity conditions, which will help facilitate the timely transportation of patients.

Abstract

Purpose

Increased ambulance calls affect the timely transportation of patients. Recently, ambulance uses from long-term care facilities (LTCFs) for older adults has been increasing. The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent LTCFs used ambulances for low-acuity conditions.

Methods

Ambulance records from the fire department of Misato City were used. The participants were patients aged 65 years or older transported from all types of LTCFs (including public nursing homes, geriatric health services facilities, private nursing homes, and group homes) and homes. The proportions of ambulance use for low-acuity conditions and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated and compared by time (daytime and night-time) and day (weekdays and holidays) of ambulance use for each type of residence.

Results

Of 12,494 participants, 1336 (11%) were transported from LTCFs, and 326 (2.6%) for low-acuity conditions. Of 326 patients with low-acuity conditions, 69% were transported from LTCFs. The proportion of low-acuity conditions was 17% among those transported from LTCFs, while it was only 1% among those from homes. The proportion of low-acuity conditions was significantly greater during night-time than daytime among those from public nursing homes, geriatric health services facilities, and group homes, while this proportion was greater on weekdays than holidays among those from geriatric health services facilities.

Conclusion

This study found a large number of instances of ambulance use for low-acuity conditions by LTCFs. To reduce unnecessary ambulance use for low-acuity conditions efficiently, LTCFs should be assisted in making proper assessments of both patients’ conditions and appropriate ambulance use.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Misato City’s fire department for providing the data required for this study.

Funding

Not applicable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Comprehensive, Human Sciences University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Yusuke Takayama

  2. Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Ai Hori, Rie Tanaka & Masao Ichikawa

Authors
  1. Yusuke Takayama
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  2. Ai Hori
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  3. Rie Tanaka
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  4. Masao Ichikawa
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data acquisition and analysis were performed by YT. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YT and all authors commented on the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yusuke Takayama.

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Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

Approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tsukuba.

Consent to participate

Anonymized data were made available from the fire department of Misato City according to the city’s Ordinance on Privacy Protection. Thus, informed consent from the study participants was not required.

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Not applicable.

Availability of data and material

The data are not publicly available due to privacy concerns.

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Takayama, Y., Hori, A., Tanaka, R. et al. Ambulance use for low-acuity conditions by long-term care facilities for older adults. Eur Geriatr Med 11, 777–782 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-020-00333-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-020-00333-y

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